Getting there!
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Jimmy looked downcast. “And if that torque thing is contaminated, then even if we find Superman okay, he can’t do anything to help CK.”
“Got it in one,” Foster said quietly.
Straker sat back in his chair, a thoughtful look on his face. “Mister White, could you do us a favor? Call Mister Kent’s parents. There’s an old airstrip just outside of Smallville. I’m going to have a jet waiting there to bring them here.” He glanced at Freeman. “We’re going to need their help when, and if, we find those kids.”
Perry gave him a puzzled look. “You people are putting out a lot of effort to find two reporters, not that I’m ungrateful, mind you. They are two of the best in the business . . .”
“Let’s just say we have good reasons to do what ever it takes to find them and keep them alive and well,” Straker said. “Besides, I happen to know the Kents. They’re good people and Trask had no right to do what he did in Smallville.”
0 0 0
Lois stuck to back streets as she drove, frantically trying to think of a safe place to go, a safe place to hide. She knew her parents would be of no help. Her mother would panic, and she was still barely speaking to her father. She didn’t dare drive over any of the bridges to leave the island. There was no way the bridges weren’t being watched. She was covered in dried blood and Clark was unconscious in the back seat. Try to explain that to an overzealous cop.
He’d started wheezing a little, almost like asthma, and Lois had to fight down the panic that was threatening to overwhelm her.
There was one person she trusted and she headed to the south side of New Troy Island, to her Uncle Mike’s apartment. It took only a few minutes until she parked the Cherokee behind the American Bistro, her uncle’s restaurant in midtown. Her uncle lived above the restaurant.
She climbed out of the car and knocked on the back door to the restaurant. She prayed it would be Mike who opened the door.
The door opened.
“What the . . .Lois? What’s happened? Are you okay?” Mike Lane exclaimed, eyes wide at the sight standing inside the back screen door.
She threw her arms around his neck. “Uncle Mike, we need your help. Clark and I need your help.”
“Clark? Your partner, Clark?” He looked around for the young man.
“He’s in the back of my car, Uncle Mike.” She nodded to the Cherokee. “He’s hurt. I don’t know how bad.”
“Lois, honey,” Mike said, suddenly worried. “If he’s hurt, you need to get him to the emergency room, or a doctor.”
She shook her head. “No, they’ll just turn him back over to be people who did this. Please Uncle Mike, please help until I can figure a way of getting him out of the city, someplace where they can’t find him.”
“Where who can’t find him?” Mike asked, following Lois to the car. She pulled open the back door to the Cherokee. Mike gasped at seeing Clark’s bruised and bloodied body. “Oh dear God in heaven. Who did this to him, honey?”
“Some crazy people. Government crazy people,” Lois answered.
Mike put his hands under Clark’s arms and around his chest to pull the younger man out of the back car seat. Lois grabbed Clark’s legs as they hefted him free of the car. “He weighs more than he looks,” Mike complained mildly.
Clark roused enough to walk a little as Mike and Lois helped him up the flight of stairs behind the restaurant to Mike’s second floor apartment.
Mike led them to his bedroom, pulling down the blankets and top sheet, then lowering Clark onto the mattress. Clark moaned, protesting feebly as Mike started to pull the bloody, filthy scrub pants down over his hips.
“Lois, honey,” Mike said, throwing the sheet over Clark to protect at least some modicum of the young man’s modesty. “There’re some fresh towels and wash clothes in the linen cupboard by the bathroom. Could you bring me a towel and a damp cloth so I can clean him up a little? And I’m sure I must have something around here you can put on until we get some clothes for you.” He paused, thinking. “I assume none of that blood is yours?”
“I’m okay, Uncle Mike, really. They didn’t hurt me.”
Lois disappeared into the adjoining bathroom for a minute as Mike looked over Clark’s injuries. That he’d been beaten repeatedly was obvious, as was the fact he’d been flogged, even though Mike was sure it hadn’t been with anything he was familiar with and he was familiar with a lot of weapons. There were other injuries the retired Marine recognized on the young man’s chest, legs and other places, injuries Mike had seen on other men, including himself, when he was a POW in Viet Nam – chemical and electrical burns. The tube sutured to his left arm indicated they’d used drugs as well and hadn’t wanted to repeatedly hunt for veins.
“Lois, why were they doing this? Why were they torturing him?”
“They said they wanted information about some invasion they were afraid of,” Lois explained, returning with the damp cloth and towel. “But what would Clark know about an invasion?”
“Honey, I know a little something about interrogation,” Mike said, taking the cloth from her and gently wiping away some of the blood on Clark’s face. “This sort of damage doesn’t get you answers. This sort of damage is done to punish and to break. Why would someone want to break him?”
“I don’t know, Uncle Mike,” Lois said. “But we think they mistook him for someone else, some named Kal-El.” She paused a long moment and added softly: “I think Kal-El may be Superman’s real name. I think they mistook Clark for him.”
Mike gave her a deeper puzzled look as he continued daubing the blood and sweat from Clark’s face. “But Superman’s invulnerable. How could anybody mistake Clark for Superman?”
As he spoke, Clark began to moan, trying to move away from the hands touching him. Lois moved closer. “It’s okay, Clark, it’s okay. We’re at my Uncle Mike’s place. It’s okay.” He started to calm, eyes half open although Lois was pretty sure he wasn’t registering anything he was seeing. She took the cloth from Mike’s hand and continued wiping Clark’s face and neck. He was burning up.
“I think they may had a way to make Superman vulnerable. Six weeks ago, there was this guy who claimed he had something that could hurt Superman. There was no proof and the guy’s dead now, but maybe his confederates found it. Plus . . .” She let her voice trail off. “Plus, Superman was seen four days ago with two cops who put him in their car. And three days ago, his cape was found with blood on it. But Clark was pretty sure Superman got away from them, and that’s why they grabbed him instead.”
Mike nodded, not sure he believed her explanation. But he wasn’t ready to explore the most likely scenario with her – that the monsters who had tortured her partner knew exactly who they were hurting and they’d been hurting Superman.
“Honey, Clark needs medical attention, and since you won’t go to the hospital with him, I’m calling your dad.”
“I don’t know if he’ll come,” Lois said.
“He’ll come,” Mike assured her gently. “He’ll help.”
